Demystifying Academic Writing: Reflections on Emotions, Know-How and Academic Identity

Abstract

Writing is the foundation of academic practice, yet academic writing is seldom explicitly taught. As a result many beginning (and experienced) academics struggle with writing and the difficult emotions, particularly the self-doubt, that writing stirs up. Yet it need not be like this. In this paper, strategies are discussed for attending to the emotions of writing, and developing writing know-how and a stronger sense of identity as a writer. It is argued that addressing all three aspects of writing—emotions, know-how and identity—helps demystify the academic writing process and helps novices on their journey to becoming academic writers.

Keywords:

• Academic writing
• emotions
• academic identity
• writing know-how
• voice

Acknowledgements

The three authors would like to thank all participants in the writing workshops for their wonderful contributions and reflections on the process. The comments from reviewers helped sharpen their ideas and writing. The editors also provided invaluable support. Jenny Cameron also acknowledges the encouragement of John Forester, Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, and the support of Griffith University's Urban Research Program and Environmental Planning programme for the writing workshops.

Notes

¹ We have also incorporated these strategies into undergraduate teaching. And while writing needs to be explicitly addressed at the undergraduate level, in this paper we are concerned with the practice and struggle of academic writing at the graduate and early career level, when what is at stake is an academic vocation and identity.

² A few comments on the workshops are, however, necessary. The first workshop was run in June 2005 at Otago University, New Zealand by all three authors (and with eight participants); and the second workshop was run in September 2005 at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia by the first author (and with 12 participants). For more information about the format of the initial and subsequent workshops, readers can contact the first author.

³ At the end of the initial workshops participants were asked four questions: (1) What are three things you have learned from this workshop? (2) What have you got most out of the workshop and/or what are some things you might put into practice? (3) What were (up to) three things/activities/aspects that worked well during the workshop? (4) What were (up to) three things/activities/aspects that would need to be changed for future workshops? The three-month feedback followed a similar format asking participants to comment on: overall impact of the workshop on their writing approach; specific impacts on actual writing practice; activities or discussions from the workshop that stand out, and why changes should be made to the workshop (and any extra comments). All participants provided feedback at the end of the workshops and 11 of the 20 participants provided three-month feedback. The feedback process was approved by the human research ethics committees from Griffith University and the University of Otago. Given the requirement for anonymity we cannot tell whether comments are from graduate students or early career academics.

⁴ Which is not to say that such feelings are immutable. In her discussion of the person-centred approach to therapy, Bondi reminds us of people's capacity for change particularly through reflection and self-understanding (2005, pp. 441–442). As we are suggesting in this paper, intensive writing experiences (such as writing workshops, writing groups and writing retreats) offer a context for reflecting on and potentially generating new self-understandings about the experience of writing and its associated emotions.

⁵ We thank one reviewer for this insight.

⁶ These comments strike a chord with Boler's concept of a “pedagogy of discomfort” (1999). Boler uses the concept to reflect on how racism and homophobia might be addressed by getting students to question learned beliefs and assumptions, an exercise that invariably leads students to confront their fear of losing personal and cultural identity. In the context of writing, the pedagogy of discomfort means that novices have to confront their fear of loss of academic identity as their draft work (and potentially their lack of skill and lack of knowledge) is exposed to another (whether in the context of a group event like a writing workshop or in the one-on-one supervisory relationship).

⁷ Workshop participants highlighted how useful these guidelines were, with feedback such as “Really useful ways to think about responding to … writing besides copy-editing and ‘telling’ or prescribing”.

⁸ It is therefore no coincidence that this section is so brief. In contrast with many other publications which primarily attend to technical writing know-how, we want to highlight how important it is also to address writing emotions and academic identity.